These Worn and Tattered Pages
by Lyris
Summary: Deployed on a special mission, the D.Gray-man crew fight against a powerful storybook innocence. Little do they know the crazy journey including various genres that it'll take them through. Yullen-centric. "And to think I used to love story-telling time."
1. Chapter 0:Prologue

Warning: Yullen, Mature content (duh .o)

Disclaimer: I wish I owned -man…no luck however, so don't sue ):

**Author's Note:** This chapter is a prologue/tester for this fic, thus the short length. It takes place after Allen returns from restoring the Ark, before the new uniforms are introduced. Also, do expect the genre to be hopping in later chapters~ *hint hint*! Now onto the fic!

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**Chapter Zero : Prologue**

The day started out the same as any other day, Allen mused. Sitting in the cafeteria with Lavi, Miranda, and (begrudgingly) Kanda, he began to tally up the statistics thus far. It had been approximately two hours since he woke up to Lavi's call that breakfast was awaiting him, for Lavi had quickly learned that it was by far the most efficient method of waking Allen up. Since then he had received an estimated seventy death threats from Kanda, as per normal, three ultra corny pick up lines plus wiggling of the eyebrows from Lavi, too many 'moyashi's for his liking, and a delightful breakfast of six waffles, nine pancakes, five eggs, eleven servings of rice, a side order of two whole onions, four sandwiches, three filet o' fishes…ah yes, and fifteen sausages. It was still rather early in the morning, but no call for a new mission had been received yet, so Allen was in a content mood, sighing happily-

"Kanda, Allen, Lavi, Miranda! I've been looking for you!"

-until once again the bearer of bad news appeared. "Good morning, Lenalee," Allen greeted with a rub of his eyes. This much food always made him either extremely sleepy or 'bouncing off the walls' energetic. Unfortunately, this meal was of the sleepy sort. "What did you need?"

"Good morning, I was up early and wandering the halls when I got a message- by the way Allen, did you really eat that much? Your eating habits never do cease to amaze me, parasitic innocence or not," Lenalee frowned at the remembrance that the said innocence was eating away the sleepy boy's life force.

There was a low growl that, to no one's surprise, was emitted from the testy Kanda. "Just tell us what you want and be on your way, woman," he spat.

"_Excuse me_?" Lenalee's aura seemed to darken to the point where it was visible as the group scooted further away from her leg reach. "I'll be happy to inform you then, Kanda, that my brother wants to see us all."

"Che," the disgruntled Japanese exorcist said, not sparing the girl another look before resuming the consummation of his soba.

"One day your manners will really get you into trouble," Lenalee sighed, "Well if you're all done, shall we be on our way?"

Allen and the rest nodded, clearing their rubbish away and standing to follow Lenalee to Komui's room.

"Oi, forgetting someone?" Kanda spat out, though he didn't really care either way.

"We have Lenalee, Miranda, Lavi, me…nope, I think we're set!" Allen called back with a mocking wave of his hand.

"You bitch," was the only reply before the man before he seemed to sulkily follow after them after finishing the rest of his soba, though no one would comment on it. He hadn't been out on a mission in quite some time, and he was practically itching for some action. Glancing at the rather loud group next to him, Kanda silently brooded on whether he would be blessed with a solo mission or, lord help him, be stuck with this sorry lot. The former seemed so much more pleasing…

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Komui sat at his desk as normal, however this time he was carefully examining the contents of a peculiar book while consuming his morning dose of coffee. Footsteps and yelling drifted through the walls, slowly approaching the briefing room. The footsteps paused for a moment outside as the yelling amplified. Komui raised an eyebrow as an all too familiar black sword was suddenly thrust through the wall. It was grudgingly withdrawn after more chatter and a nervous laughter. Then, at the sound of the door creaking open, the ebony haired scientist glanced up and addressed the team he had assembled.

"Good morning, my favorite exorcists!" he greeted, eyes twinkling with untold glee. This earned him a stifled yawn and groggy 'Morning' complimentary of Allen, a 'Yo' from Lavi, a soft 'G-good M-m-morning…' from Miranda, and simple narrowing of the eyes from Kanda.

"Good morning, brother!" Lenalee cheerfully chimed, smiling brightly at Komui.

"Why good morning my dearest sister!" Komui gushed, setting his coffee mug down to hug his beloved sibling to death.

"If you don't hurry up and tell us why in hell we were called in at this ungodly time in the morning, you WILL meet the same fate as the moyashi," Kanda growled, eye twitching slightly.

"But Kanda, Allen looks fine," Komui pouted as Kanda's clenched fist hit his desk hard, making a large crater in it, "I mean…Of course! This is a special mission that requires the most able exorcists available, so I have assembled this…team, for lack of a better word, for the sole reason of completing it. The finders had managed to locate a rather elusive innocence a few months back. We have sent two teams to retrieve it within that time, however none have returned so this calls for some special measures."

"The innocence takes the form of a storybook. It also currently has a user, a boy by the sound of it. He is referred to as 'the writer'. We only know that he controls the power of speech as well as writing. He can create amazing stories that, upon reading or hearing them, seem as real as the here and now."

Kanda stared incredulously at the supervisor. "Are you kidding? You called us here and even stuck me in the same fucking team as the baka usagi and moyashi all because of a freaking book? Give me a something more worthwhile to do, I refuse to take up a baby sitting job."

"Aw, but it pays so well!" Komui exclaimed before Mugen found its way into the desk right beside his gloved hand, "Ahahahaha…you shouldn't underestimate the power of the writer though! As useless of an ability as it may seem, the storybook innocence can make any story potentially dangerous. Even this book for example," the scientist shut the book he was examining in a quick motion to reveal the cover, his other hand reaching up to slide his glasses further up the bridge of his nose.

The team gave each other side-glances at the revealed book. Allen bit back a grin as Lavi burst out in laughter. Kanda yelled at him to 'Shut the fuck up' so he could leave the dreaded room as soon as possible while Lenalee stared at her brother with a horrified look. Meanwhile, Miranda's fidgeting increased as she glanced around nervously with a furious blush staining her face.

"Obviously a porno book is VERY dangerous," Lavi managed to wheeze out between hysterical bouts of laughter, "We better be extra careful on this mission! I'm not sure if we can handle it!"

"It may do Kanda some good," Allen added in under his breath. Unfortunately for him, Kanda had excellent hearing.

"I heard that moyashi," he said in a dark tone, reaching over to retrieve his sword from the beaten up desk, "I dare you to say it again. I'll give you five seconds before I shove Mugen down your throat."

Allen sighed at the fifty-bajillionth threat that Kanda had shot at him within his first three hours of waking. "Anyway, let's hurry and get this done. I'm just about as pleased to be on the same team as this ass as he is to be on the same as me."

"Yes, yes," Komui nodded in agreement, "Heed my words however. Not much is known about this innocence, but it must be rather powerful to have two teams defeated. We can't assume that they are dead however…"

"They're stuck in a porno book perhaps," Lavi couldn't help snorting with a stupid grin on his face. This earned him a sharp look from Komui. "Chillax man, it's not as though we haven't dealt with harsh situations before. What's the worst that can happen? Not like we'll get ourselves sucked into some stupid fairytale."

"That'd be interesting to say the least. I vote for Kanda to be the pretty princess! We'll be heading out then, bye!" Allen practically said without breathing whilst zipping out the door with a very angry Kanda hot on his heels yelling insults in multiple languages. The rest of the crew trickled out of the room after the pair until Komui was left alone with his book.

"Take care," he whispered to the now vacant room, one of his hands resting upon the book cover, tracing lightly over the intricate gold leafed lettering, "You may need it."

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Author's Note: So, how was it? Please leave feedback so I can see whether it's worth continuing or not! Thanks for reading!

Next Chapter- **Chapter One : The Writer**_ "A mythical land with a pool of tears…"_


	2. Sacrifice

Warning: Yullen fluff, possibility of mature content later. Tons of expletive language, can't avoid that without taking Kanda out of the fic completely!

Disclaimer: I don't own the series- if I did, it would have been updated way more often ):

**Author's Note:** I know I've disappeared from this site for…I don't know, maybe three years or so. I know I've disappointed people who have bothered reading my writings. I hope they can forgive me, and hope they will love this new chapter. I will try to find time to keep updating as much as possible!

A note on the fic itself- I have decided to make this more of a short novel of sorts, as I have taken a rather interesting short story class since my leave. However, I am open to ideas for side stories/one shots based on the story itself for anyone who would like to suggest any!

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**Chapter One Half : Sacrifice**

"A book store!" Lenalee shouted gleefully.

Everyone practically fell over.

"You don't think we haven't thought of that before?" Kanda shouted at the girl while Lavi simply chuckled to himself.

"Hey, I don't recall you ever contributing to our plans," she retorted, sticking her tongue out, "It's not like we have any better ideas. There's only one book store in the entire town anyway, and the innocence had to come from somewhere."

"She has a point, you know," the still-chuckling redhead added, "We have no better leads anyway. The other teams that were sent in didn't even have a chance to send one last note. It sounds like a good place to start to me."

Kanda just glared and turned around again with a soft 'che'. Lenalee stuck her tongue out at his back again, being the ever graceful and mature lady she was. The rest of the train ride continued mostly in silence with a porno joke being thrown around every once in a while, causing Kanda to only become more angry and Miranda to fidget even more.

Seriously, no one really expected Komui to like _that_ type of women.

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The doorbell chimed loudly in the seemingly abandoned bookstore. The town itself had seemed rather empty, and the people that the team saw were very careful in avoiding them entirely. Kanda even managed to scare off a few of the townsfolk, yelling at them in "an attempt to get them to stop running away". Of course that worked brilliantly.

"Hello? Is anyone there?" Allen called into the seemingly endless hallway full of dusty books.

"What makes you think they would want to talk to us anyway?" Lavi sighed, "Given our luck with the townsfolk, I'd say we'd be better off just giving the place a look arou-EEP!"

Lavi jumped as a hand grabbed his shoulder firmly from behind. He quickly turned to face the perpetrator- a decrepit looking man with spectacles hiding his blank eyes.

"May I help you?"

It took a while for the group to gather their wits. Kanda had drawn mugen, pointing it menacingly at the man while Lenalee and Allen had assumed fighting stances. They hadn't even heard him approach from the dank depths of the bookstore, despite it being so quiet.

"Who the fuck are you?" Kanda growled out, not bothering to lower mugen.

"I'm the keeper of this shop, of course. May I help you today?" the man said, completely unfazed.

Allen relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief. "Sorry, you had surprised us," he explained, polite as always, "We're here in search of a book."

"You don't say."

"Well…yeah," Allen continued lamely, unsure how to patch that one up, "This book is supposed to be special. A book unlike those you have ever read before. Do you know anything about it?"

"Yes. I do. However, have you brought with you the necessary sacrifice?" the man held out a gloved hand in inquiry.

Lenalee, Miranda, and Lavi stared at the hand before looking at each other questioningly. A sacrifice? Komui hadn't said anything about that. Why would you need to 'sacrifice' anything to see a book? Either way, Kanda wasn't pleased at all with the reply. His eyes narrowed as he took a step towards the shop keeper, mugen still outstretched and gleaming in the faint light.

"We don't need a sacrifice. All we want to do is look at a book. Is that so hard?" he ground out between clenched teeth. He wasn't getting a good feeling from this place, nor this man. Not a good feeling at all.

"Now Kanda, put mugen away, there's no need to threaten him," Lenalee chided him, knocking her teammate in the side which earned her a glare.

"Very well. If you wish to see it, then I will take you there."

"What? Really?" All four of them asked in unison.

They hadn't expected it to be this easy. They had no such 'sacrifice' with them, yet all it took was a little bit of Kanda being Kanda to bypass that? Kanda being Kanda had never worked before. In fact, it had always worked against their favor. A win was a win however, and the team followed behind the man who slowly passed bookcase after bookcase.

After what seemed like an eternity of bookcases and silence, they finally came to a stop. There were no bookshelves around them and no decorations in the room they had entered from the hallway. Before them lay an open book which they had assumed was the innocence that they were looking for. It was a massive book in terrible condition; the pages were torn, some looked singed, and a few parts looked as though they were falling out. Definitely not how the team expected it to look.

The page that it was on contained a faded picture. Allen cautiously walked closer to the book at the nudging of Lavi and Lenalee, peering at the page. The picture contained a clock, a tea set, and what looked to be a card. He furrowed a brow before turning to question the man as to how they should go about retrieving the book when there was a shout of surprise, and a sudden force rammed into him, pushing him backwards. He lost his balance as he realized that the entire team had fallen upon him, and the last thing he saw was those dark eyes of the book keeper. Those cold, smiling eyes.

Allen had reached behind him in instinct, trying to break their fall a bit. His hand met nothing however, and he just about screamed bloody murder when he saw that the book was practically sucking them in. He fell through it with the rest of his team, all of them shouting and screaming as they fell through white nothingness.

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Allen woke up with a start. He rubbed his bottom, wincing at its tenderness. A moan sounded from beside him, and he looked down to see Lavi…or it looked like Lavi anyway.

"What the hell happened," the redhead muttered, slowly sitting up.

"Uh…Lavi…?" Allen questioned, his eyes round and wide.

"Yeah? Why are you looking at me like that? What's wrong?" Lavi answered, turning to look at Allen.

"WHAT THE HELL?!" they yelled in unison, jumping away from each other.

"You-you have ears! Of the non-human kind!" Allen exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at Lavi.

"Me? YOU have ears! Of the cute, soft, cuddly kind!" Lavi retaliated, pointing a finger back.

"What? No I don't!" The moyashi reached up with a hand and was met with softness. "Oh bloody hell."

There was another moan from behind them, this time belonging to Lenalee. Both Lavi and Allen gulped, afraid of what they'd see after their findings of their own changes. Lenalee sat up and, to both of their surprise, looked much like her normal self.

"Am I the only one feeling horribly gypped right now?" Allen asked, a frown on his face.

"I do believe I'm in that boat too, buddy," Lavi replied, his purple and pink tail drooping.

"Oh my, Lavi? Allen? What in the world is going on?" the girl asked with a gasp, "While it is very cute, I don't think now is a great time to be dressing up…"

"We aren't," both of them said dryly.

"Then what-" Lenalee began, but was cut off by Miranda sitting up beside her.

It looked like they were going to have a third in their 'gypped' boat. On top of Miranda's head were two perfectly round mouse ears. Before anyone could say anything else, there was a yell of outrage from behind them.

"**WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT?**"

Now, Allen and Lavi could only imagine what had happened to Kanda. They really couldn't help but snicker at the prospect as they turned around. However, they were met by something far exceeding their expectations.

Kanda was never going to live this one down.

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Author's Note: So I had this as a sort of in-between chapter, just as a teaser. I hope everyone enjoyed, and looks forward to more! You'll get to see how Kanda has ended up. He really will never live this one down. As always, please review, favorite, or watch the story! Your feedback is always loved. Until next time!

Next Chapter- **Chapter One : The Writer**_"A mythical land with a pool of tears…"_


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